getting away from it all on a five-day cycling trip along the C&O Canal. a change of SCENERY By Melanie D.G. Kaplan • Photos by Michael Kircher 26 NATIONALPARKS SPRING 2021 27 Falls Park, which runs along a spectacular sec- Three days and 117 miles into my bike tion of the river with waterfalls and cascading ride along the Chesapeake and Ohio rapids, and I visited the canal with my class- mates to ride a mule-towed boat (the origin of Canal, I started seeing things.. the term “towpath”), a replica of those used during the canal’s working days. I’d explored small sections of the linear park as an adult, With 4.2 miles to go until the next campsite, I was imagining and almost a decade ago, one of my first dates with a triathlete mileposts where they didn’t exist. It was the latest chapter in an was a 52-mile round-trip pedal between White’s Ferry, Mary- exasperating day: I’d suffered from a headache for most of the land, and Harpers Ferry, West Virginia — with zero preparation morning and then had tripped on wobbly legs, falling hard. Meet- on my part. I wouldn’t recommend biking the canal this way, but ing friends for lunch in Shepherdstown, if the excursion had been my date’s West Virginia, was a welcome reprieve, way of testing my fortitude, I guess but the break had disrupted my rhythm I passed. Plus, it planted the seed on the bike, and I may have been a little for future C&O rides. overzealous in my fish taco frenzy. Now Last spring and summer, I had I was back on the towpath, alone, tired coped with the stress of the pan- and on the verge of an après-feast col- demic by spending more time on lapse. My fingers were sticky from layers my bike, and when I decided to of sunscreen, chain grease, chocolate plan my first multiday ride, the energy gel and hand sanitizer. With canal beckoned. Eager for a change every micro-swerve around wayward of scenery, a disruption of my daily rocks and roots, the extra weight packed routine and the thrill of an outdoor onto my bike threatened to topple me COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER/ adventure, I planned an end-to- sideways. end, five-day trip, which meant Squinting at a marker in the dis- a pace of no more than 50 miles tance, I was certain I’d conquered a day. I scheduled the journey for another mile since the last numbered two weeks before the presidential post, only to cruise past a cunning tree OF SPECIAL COURTESY UNIVERSITY WASHINGTON THE GEORGE election and vowed to stay off all stump. Time and again, I saw phantom electronic devices. mileposts in fallen trees, shadows and In the months before my ride, I thin air. When the portable toilet at Huckleberry Hill campsite biked more frequently and played hooky one day for an exhaust- finally came into view, I thought I might weep. ing 60-mile excursion along the canal and the parallel Western I slowed to a stop on the towpath and surveyed my home for Maryland Rail Trail, which — unlike the towpath — is paved. I the night: a small, empty clearing in the woods with a lone picnic also hunkered down with stories about our first president, who table. The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees, and rode horseback along the volatile Potomac (known for its floods, I saw the water glimmering beyond the half-bare branches. For rapids and dry spells) at age 16. For much of his life, George days, the Potomac River had been my constant companion, yet Washington dreamed of a trade route that would connect the we’d always kept a polite distance. Now I ached for contact — to Ohio River Valley to the Eastern Seaboard. Before becoming dip my toes in and splash cold water on my face. I parked my chief executive of the country in 1789, Washington was named bike, quickly pitched my tent, kicked off my sneakers and walked president of the Potowmack Canal Company. He oversaw the down to the river. beginnings of a primitive canal system but didn’t live to see its Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park completion. stretches 184.5 miles between Cumberland, Maryland, and By 1850, the canal — then run by the Chesapeake and Ohio Washington, D.C., and encompasses nearly 20,000 acres. It is home to 1,200 native plant species, hundreds of animal species, A GREAT BLUE HERON at Swains Lock in Travilah, Maryland (right). one dynamic river and innumerable spots of breathtaking beauty. Inset above: Boaters on the canal in the early 1900s. Previous pages: Growing up in Maryland, I picnicked with my family in Great A cyclist between locks 16 and 17. 28 NATIONALPARKS Cumberland Visitor Center mile 184.5 Cumberland Irons Mountain Spring Gap PENNSYLVANIA P o t o m a c Paw Paw R i (and Congress approved) turning the canal into a scenic high- That night, I pulled out “Captain Kate,” a young adult novel v Tunnel NPCA at Work e r Fifteenmile Creek way, but starting in the 1950s, Supreme Court Justice William about a 12-year-old girl in Civil War Cumberland who pilots her Little Orleans A portion of the C&O Canal National Historical O. Douglas, a conservationist, led an effort to reverse course family’s boat down the canal after her father dies. I’d packed Park could be closed for as many as five years CHESAPEAKE & and protect the canal. He called it “a refuge, a place of retreat, a it figuring I wouldn’t be able to absorb anything more compli- if an interstate-widening proposal by Maryland OHIO CANAL NATIONAL Hancock long stretch of quiet and peace.” A section of the canal became cated after long days of biking. Overnight, the trains sounded Gov. Larry Hogan moves forward. The project, a national monument in 1961; the park was expanded to include like they were barreling through my tent, waking me for long which calls for adding four toll lanes on two HISTORICAL PARK the entire canal and surrounding lands and was redesignated a stretches. The next morning, I woke to see steam rising from the different highways, could destroy 1,500 acres Towpath national historical park in 1971, the year I was born. Potomac. I was shivering and tired but excited to start moving. of forest canopy near the nation’s capital, pol- Big Pool McCoys Ferry Drive–in campsite Before I set off on the towpath in October, I read everything I James headed back to Cumberland, and Robert and I, wearing lute 30 miles of local streams, and impair the visitor experience and natural habitat at seven Hiker–biker Lockhouse 49 could about packing a bike, which intimidated me far more than all of our warm clothes, headed south. Conococheague Creek national park sites (with unsightly sound barri- campsite the miles. I made overnight reservations at two of the historic Along the quiet canal, I initially kept my eyes on the path. WEST ers, wetland destruction and land loss among Williamsport lockhouses, organized my freeze-dried meals and borrowed Robert, a far more experienced rider, served as our leader, scout- VIRGINIA other eventualities), according to NPCA’s a tiny camp stove. In the final days, I bought spare tubes and ing out the towpath just ahead of me. Within the first couple of Pamela Goddard, senior program director for Shepherdstown practiced getting a tire off and on my bike. After that critical suc- hours, he had spotted a pileated woodpecker (somehow recall- the mid-Atlantic region. The multibillion-dollar She Antietam Creek Sharpsburg nandoah River Bolivar cess, I stopped agonizing about getting a flat, which just left all ing the brilliant red crest from his fourth grade book report), project would displace people living within Huckleberry Hill the other concerns: overpacking, overlooking essentials, falling, a beaver, wood ducks and turtles. The weather warmed, and I the proposed expansion corridor and set back HARPERS FERRY freezing or starving. The night before my departure, I packed stopped to shed several layers. When I caught up to Robert, my the state’s efforts to substantially limit green- NATIONAL HISTORICAL Brunswick two waterproof panniers and loaded the car. It was time to let arms were bare. “Sun’s out, guns out,” he said. house-gas emissions by 2030. Adding lanes PARK nature do its healing. After a quick detour for lunch, we found ourselves at the encourages people to drive, compounding the VIRGINIA White’s The next afternoon was an autumn day out of central cast- entrance to the Paw Paw Tunnel, where the canal and towpath problem, and takes critical green space from Ferry ing: The air was crisp, and the sun seemed to accentuate every go straight through a mountain for nearly two-thirds of a mile. national parks, said Goddard, who has been working with a coalition of allies to defeat the Washington fall color. I walked around Cumberland, stalling, certain I’d for- An engineering marvel, the tunnel took 14 years to complete. I’d Dulles proposal. “It’s a bad project,” she said. “It hurts International r Poolesville gotten something important. My plan was to bike only a short read it could be dangerous to bike through and was fully pre- e v parks, it’s going to cost a fortune, and it’s not Airport i R distance the first day; my friend Robert had agreed to meet me pared to walk if things got dicey.